<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Wheel of Westeros: Book Three Rise of the Raven Part Six by Thrafrau (annmcbee)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29739780">Wheel of Westeros: Book Three Rise of the Raven Part Six</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/annmcbee/pseuds/Thrafrau'>Thrafrau (annmcbee)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wheel of Westeros [33]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Isle of Ravens, Jon Snow Needs a Hug, No Jon and Dany don't have sex in this one be patient already, Past Child Abuse, Sea Monsters, The Old Gods (A Song of Ice and Fire), Vampires, Volantis (A Song of Ice and Fire), Winterfell (A Song of Ice and Fire), Woods Witches, oldtown, sorcery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:14:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,447</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29739780</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/annmcbee/pseuds/Thrafrau</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon parts with his daughter and sisters again to sail across the Narrow Sea and escape the darkness that has fallen over the North, and sends Arya on an important quest. Bran learns more about the history between his aunt and the prince of Dragonstone, while training for a fight to win back the present, and ancient secrets are revealed. Griff must retreat from Oldtown with spoils from the Citadel, and magic is used to escape to Dragonstone, where Arianne is threatened by a curse that has already taken her brother. In Volantis, Dany awaits the arrival of her new allies as her enemies close in. (Lots of borrowing in this one...from Deadwood, The Last Unicorn, The Lost Boys and The VVitch among others...)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jon Snow &amp; Arya Stark, Jon Snow &amp; Daenerys Targaryen, Long Haul Jon/Daenerys, Lyanna Stark &amp; Ned Stark, Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen, Stannis Baratheon &amp; Daenerys Targaryen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wheel of Westeros [33]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1458574</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Wheel of Westeros: Book Three Rise of the Raven Part Six</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>
    <em>The Wheel of Westeros</em>
  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>Book Three: Rise of the Raven Part Six</strong>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Disclaimer:</em>
</p>
<p><em>This fan fiction is meant neither to be a continuation of George R. R. Martin’s </em>A Song of Ice and Fire<em> series, nor a revision of seasons 6-8 of the HBO series, </em>Game of Thrones<em>. It is meant to stand alone, independent of those works, and can be read alone by those who have not seen the TV series or read the books. Having said that, this work will borrow from not only </em>Game of Thrones<em> and </em>A Song of Ice and Fire, <em>but from multiple other works of film, television, music and literature. Please see footnotes for references, and feel free to point out any I’ve forgotten.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Chapter 1: Jon</p>
<p>Grief hung in the air at Winterfell, even as the walls continued to reconstruct themselves with granite that came from nowhere. Perhaps the Old Gods had procured it from deep in the earth, or taken it from somewhere that owed them sacrifice. Arya and Jon questioned their will only in silence, and never conversed about their losses when they trained together daily as they had done before so much went wrong. One morning, however, Arya did not bring a sword with her to the circle in the courtyard in which they typically danced together. Instead, she carried with her two long oaken staffs. Arya tossed one of them at him, and he caught it in one hand.</p>
<p>            “If you’re going to fight in the East, you need to know the staff,” Arya said.</p>
<p>            “I know it some already,” Jon said. Staff in hand, he began to circle his sister, who smiled wryly at him.</p>
<p>            “You’re grasping it incorrectly.”</p>
<p>            “This is the way I prefer to hold it.”</p>
<p>            “Fine,” said Arya, but in two seconds she had hooked Jon’s staff and somehow sent it flying behind him. Thus taught, Jon went to retrieve it, saying nothing as his little sister grinned. When he returned to face her, he clutched the staff as she did – hands a foot apart near the center.</p>
<p>            “There are three main weak points for contact,” Arya said, sliding her hand along the staff and directing the end of it at the side of Jon’s good eye. “The temple…” Then she moved the end of the staff to his neck. “…the throat, and for some of us…” Now she directed the end of the staff between Jon’s legs. “…the groin.”</p>
<p>            With a chuckle, she twirled the staff effortlessly and stepped back, getting into her stance. Then their brother-and-sister dance began. When they had finished, both were more bruised than usual. Arya had taken Jon off his feet and landed him on his back, and he had swept her legs in the same moment, flattening her on the frozen earth. Arya would wear a swollen lip to supper, and Jon would be donning a blackened eye. They would likely dine on a meager supper of beans, buttered turnips and a thin rabbit stew, and Sansa wouldn’t say more than two words to either of them. She had been ecstatic to see them when they arrived, less so upon hearing of the end of her mother, and downright hysterical at the suggestion of Arya taking Jon’s daughter with her to the Riverlands. <em>You can have the North…please! Just don’t take her away!</em> She didn’t understand that the Barrow Kings had taken the North from both of them already.</p>
<p>            Jon waited to depart until the bitter cold snap brought on by the dead kings’ returning broke, and the sun could again be seen in a silvery sky. Until then he prayed daily in the godswood for as long as he could before the cold drove him back to his chambers. He beckoned in desperate whispers to the swamp spirit, <em>lady if you can hear me, appear to me now and tell me what to do. Give me a sign to show me I am doing right…</em>but she had abandoned him. He had been touched too much by the dark magic of the Old Gods, and it was likely she would never shed her light on him again. The thought compounded the tremendous sorrow Jon already felt at the loss of Val, and at night Ghost broke his silence with howl after howl until Sansa screamed out her window, <em>Shut! Up! </em>The nights often grew so cold that Ren Sealskinner brought himself and his littler siblings to sleep with Jon in his bed. They felt safer that way, and Jon was grateful for the warmth and comfort. Sleeping alone brought on cold and violent dreams. He dreamt more than once that Val returned to him a corpse bride, with shimmering white skin and cruel blue eyes. When he reached for her and took her in his arms, she ripped his heart from his ribcage, and he watched it freeze solid in her hands. The dark powers of the Old Gods had him now, he knew, and they would use him until his life was spent. In the East, however, there were no weirwoods, so there would be no warging, no armies of beasts at his hands. He would be a man, and only a man – out of reach of the darkness that meant to freeze his soul. Ghost would be with him – there was no other way. Jon and his wolf could no more be separated than Jon could live without the heart in his chest.</p>
<p>When at last it was time to depart Winterfell, Jon paid a visit to Arya in her chambers. They hadn’t talked enough, he realized, and they may never see each other again.</p>
<p>            “Remember when you gave me Needle? Right here in this very room…”Arya said when Jon had closed her door behind him. “I wish I had something to give you.”</p>
<p>            She was sitting in her chair by the hearth, with her little friend Dusty curled in her lap. When they made their way from Torrhen’s Square back to Winterfell, the temperatures had been dangerously unpredictable. They moved fast to avoid freezing and camped only once along the way, but the bitterest of bitter cold would blow in without warning, and two people had frozen to death: a camp follower with the Ryswells and a young Crannogman. When they came through the Wolfswood, they came across a squirrel who appeared to be frozen in the snow. Arya had picked it up, expecting they might have it for supper, and found it was alive. She had tucked it into her coat, where it had warmed back to life next to her heart. By the time they made it home, it was clear they wouldn’t be eating him. Ned Dayne had been trying to keep everyone’s mind off the cold, and was telling everyone that the gods had made man out of the dust from exploding stars.  So Arya had named the little creature Dusty.</p>
<p>            “You’re giving me plenty,” Jon said to her. He sat down on her bed and gently fingered the skinny little sword called Needle that lay there on top of wadded furs. “You’re protecting my daughter.”</p>
<p>            “That’s giving <em>me </em>a gift and you know it.”</p>
<p>            “There’s something else though.”</p>
<p>            “Anything big brother.”</p>
<p>            “I told you I want you to go south…to Dorne.”</p>
<p>            Arya sighed. “I suppose the further south the safer…”</p>
<p>            “I want you to find my mother.”<br/>            Arya had been gently stroking Dusty’s fur with two fingers. She stopped and looked up. “Wylla…Ned’s wet nurse?”</p>
<p>            “Yes. If she’s still alive as he says, you can find and speak to her. Ask her…why she let me go. Tell her I’d like to meet her, and if she doesn’t want to…</p>
<p>            “Why wouldn’t she want to?”</p>
<p>            “If she doesn’t, then why? Did something happen?”</p>
<p>            “Jon, she may not be your mother…I told you about Lady Ashara.”</p>
<p>            “Well maybe she knows what happened there too.”</p>
<p>            “Are you sure you really want to know?”</p>
<p>            Jon nodded. “I do.” <em>When I return, I will face who and what I am at last.</em></p>
<p>            “All right, Jon. I swear I’ll find her and speak to her, and I will write as soon as I have anything to tell you.”</p>
<p>            Satin brought in a pitcher of ale then, and they sat and drank the cold away together, talking about their childhood and the days when Winterfell was a place of laughter, talking about their father, whose kindness filled their memories with softness. They talked and drank until their eyelids were heavy and the embers were low.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jon held his daughter over his shoulder for an hour the sad morning he left Winterfell again, sitting at the hearth and whispering to her about her mother – how she had been restless and brave and willful. How she was more beautiful than any highborn lady in any court, and more daring that the most courageous knight. How sorry he was that he hadn’t been the king, or the god, she had hoped he would be. How she had woken giants from the earth. <em>I have to go away, my sweet little Martha</em>, he said, so quietly. <em>I have a meeting with dragons, but I mean to return…and your auntie will protect you until I do.</em> He breathed in the scent that poured forth from the soft brown curls atop her head, filling himself with it, soaking the smell into his gloves and his clothes so that he could keep it with him.</p>
<p>            At last, he handed her off to Arya, who kissed her and handed her to Fern. The Wildling wet nurse and her little ones would join Arya and her allies at the Crossroads, and they would be accompanied by Pyp, Edd, Lyanna Mormont and Wun Wun for their protection. Jon hoped it was enough. He looked up at the window to the Lord’s chambers in the Keep, where a flicker of light could be seen, but not Sansa. She had not even gotten out of her bed. Jon was sorry and afraid for her, but soon Winterfell would have dragons protecting it – if only he played this right, and his Freefolk and Northmen warriors could tip the scales in Daenerys’ favor. Sansa still had her bannermen – including those who were dead, but the living had once again declared for Jon, and that might make the difference. Now he had to hope that by the time he made it again to the mouth of the Weeping Water, the Dragon Queen’s ships would await him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Chapter 2: Bran</p>
<p>The prince at age thirteen is all elbows and knees. He has pimples all over his forehead and chin. His hair sticks up like a rooster’s comb atop his head, no matter how his septa tries to brush it flat. His two front teeth are longer than the rest, so he looks a bit like a rabbit when he smiles, which is not the reason he almost never does. All these things are true about the prince, and yet when Bran wargs into his body and trains with him, it is like magic. No one is better, except for his friend, who will grow to be the Sword of the Morning. However, Bran prefers to train as the prince, because in the prince’s body he feels the familiar awe and confusion about how he can be so good and so lost at the same time. In the past, learning to be a warrior feels like a rabbit running.</p>
<p>            Prince Rhaegar kidnapped Bran’s aunt and raped her: that is what was known but never spoken of. Bran knows now this is not true, but when he tries to see what really happened, he is met only with a dizzy array of sights and sounds. The prince grasping Aunt Lyanna by the shoulders, wrapping a thick wool cloak around her tightly, a look of pain and fear wrinkling his forehead, rain soaking his silver hair, running into his mouth. <em>Why did you ride? You shouldn’t ride!</em> The prince naked on a bed, his great mane of hair knotted and disheveled, the bedclothes wadded about his hips, Lyanna wearing a blue silk gown, bending to kiss him while fingering a golden shackle that connects the prince’s wrist to the bed post. The prince, lips pale, dark circles under his eyes, wandering out into a storm at Harrenhall, looking up to the sky in terror, grey eyes peeking at him through the clouds.<a href="#_ftn1" id="_ftnref1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> <em>Who are you watching me? What do you want?</em> Lyanna’s gown ripping as she bends over to stoke the hearth in her bedchamber at Winterfell, and her sudden fright, clutching the rip closed <a href="#_ftn2" id="_ftnref2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a> at the sound of her father’s voice in the corridor. The prince praying, <em>Maiden, I beg you to spare me…do you hear me? If you’re real, and not just a lie, then spare me!</em></p>
<p>In the past, secrets sound like silk ripping.</p>
<p>            Before age thirteen, the prince lives in books. Books in the great library, where he hides in a corner beneath a stained-glass window from his father’s goons. Books in bed at night, under a sheet, a tiny candle with its tiny yellow flame threatening to send the entire Red Keep afire. Books at the breakfast table, poached eggs and bacon getting cold, with the septa’s scolding at the edge of hearing. Books about ancient heroes and princes and knights. About magic and mystery and prophecy. Bran spends hours with the prince in his books, lost together in the past of the past of the past of the past…</p>
<p>            <em>Listen to me and be sure you hear you fidgety little monkey. </em>King Aerys is holding the prince by the neck, his fingers pinching the skin, bruising it. <em>I will not have a scrawny bookworm for a son, do you understand? You are going to train with Ser Darry today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and every day until you become the man you were meant to be.</em> His voice is low and raspy, and with every third word he gives the skinny, pimply prince a firm shake.<em> If you aren’t one with a sword in six months time, I am going to lock up the library with the librarian inside it for eternity, and I am going to burn that harp of yours for kindling, is that clear?</em> Bran has seen the prince playing on this harp many times, and every time he would cry if he had eyes. It is more than an instrument – it is part of him. <em>Please don’t do that father…I’ll train, I’ll be good…please.</em> The king pats him warmly on the back then, and the king can’t see it, but Bran feels it: a tiny yellow candle flame of rage in the prince’s belly growing hotter and hotter. Anger in the past is a fidgety little monkey.</p>
<p>            <em>You’re doing her no favors,</em> Lord Rickard Stark is saying. <em>You will be to blame when something terrible happens – know that, my son. Do you know what can happen to a maid alone, thinking she can wield a sword in the wild? </em>They are in Winterfell, and teenaged Ned and Lyanna are in their father’s salon. Lord Rickard is as angry as Bran has ever seen him. His ears are bright red and not with the cold. He is scolding both of them, but can only look at Ned. He cannot look at his daughter, though the words are meant for her as much as they are for his son. <em>Let Nan tell you what happened to Danny Flint, if you want to know what’s in store for your sister if she keeps up this nonsense! </em>Bran knows the story of Danny, a lady of House Flint who dressed as a man to join the Night’s Watch and was raped and murdered.<a href="#_ftn3" id="_ftnref3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a> <em>I know the story, </em>Lyanna says. <em>I’m not pretending to be a man, father. </em></p>
<p>At the Nightfort, Danny Flint has round yellow eyes and wings that span centuries. The Nightfort has moved, and so has her ghost. So has the Night’s King and his bride. The Nightfort is a hive of angry malignance and evil spirits. <em>Jon, are you all right?</em> A brother’s tears freeze upon his face. Just more pain – relentless. A sister moans in her bed. There is peace for his mother, though. A watery peace like a river’s mumbling. A sigh and it passes, leaving only loss behind. <em>Meera, where are you?</em></p>
<p><em>Then what are you doing? What are you doing in those woods alone?</em> Lord Rickard looks at his daughter at last, and Bran sees Ned’s face go pale and his eyes go wide. <em>I’m not alone, I’m…</em>Lyanna stops. The silence that shivers between them now is screaming, or is it the owl hooting a warning somewhere in the Wolfswood? Something unnameable and dangerous that defies knowing – a darker secret than a Southron lover or an illicit pregnancy, than breasts bound with strips of linen.  An open book. Lightning in dark hair. A shadow of Lyanna and her riding cloak astride a limb of oak against the full moon. <em>Maybe it’s time you went back to the Eyrie, son…maybe it’s time you went back…</em></p>
<p>In the past, women’s bodies are the eerie and powerful voices of owls in the night.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>Chapter 3: A Raven in the Ravenry</p>
<p>Steffon bloodied Stannis’s nose today. Lady Marya was fit to be tied. As punishment, Steffon took Stannis’s turn bathing us. Afterward, I told the boys about two brothers I knew of who grew to hate each other. I told them how lucky they were to have each other. I told them how much I missed our brother, the bastard, who was going away to die. I think they listened.</p>
<p>            Lovely Nym, her blood boiling with beetles, would soon leave for King’s Landing, taking Trystane, Tyene, and Obara with her. One night, I heard Trystane’s body smack against the ceiling in his chamber. The power of the vampyr pulled him out the window into the night, and all the poor boy could do was flail his way to his sister’s window. Not everyone takes well to flying. This happened not long after Griff marched west, and Arianne would not leave her room without the lady of the lance by her side. What horror struck her when she saw her brother, floating in the air, crying to be let back in and brought again to solid earth.</p>
<p>            “Stay back! Back!” Arianne cried out, readying to clap the window shut again.</p>
<p>            “Ari help me…you must let me in!” Trystane terrified, in tears, clutching madly at the shutters that he would float up and away to where the magic wants to take him. How could he begin to understand what was happening to him?</p>
<p>            “No!”</p>
<p>            “Ari please!”</p>
<p>            “You’re a vampyr!”</p>
<p>            “I am not!”</p>
<p>            “So what are you? A giant gull? A griffin?”</p>
<p>            “I’m your brother, Ari help me! Please…please!”<a href="#_ftn4" id="_ftnref4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a></p>
<p>            Weeks from then, Griff has retreated from Oldtown onto the Isle of Ravens.  (Because I have you, I can be there.) Griff and his men fought well against Euron’s drooling minions, rescuing Mad Malora and Lord Leyton from Hightower. The boy is brave, his men loyal and strong. However, from the depths came an enemy that was beyond their might. Star Spawn, Sea Dragon, Storm God – it might have been called one or all of these names. Its webbed wings broke the surface first, then its grotesque head – a garden of tentacles and six red eyes. It stood as tall as the Citadel itself, thrashing with its gruesome claws, striking dead more men than Griff has ever lost in a single battle. Dick Morrigan gone…another one would need take his place in the Kingsguard. Griff goes through his white cloaks fast it seems. Lord Leyton’s magic held it while they escaped, taking with them Malora as well as young Tarly’s plunder. Leyton himself would not leave his home city again. Rest, Lord of the Tower, if you can. Most of the men were able to flee, but the monster held the prince, his guard and his hand on the isle.</p>
<p>            What did you come away with Sam Tarly? In the cage with the other ravens, I could hardly hear myself think. Griff too was distracted by waking nightmares. Those who see the creature come away with a mind undone. Already, the old Griffin no longer sees the boy himself. When he looks at Griff, he sees Rhaegar. The boy is a poor replica, but it was no matter. Rhaegar, tall, with a bounty of silver hair flowing past his shoulders, some of it tamed in braid or matted locks ending in dragonglass and bloodstone beads, but most of it soft and wild. Griff would come home with the beginnings of Rhaegar’s ear piercings. One heavy steel hoop through the top, a gleaming spike in the side, and in the lobe, a hole as big around as his thumb. The pain takes Griff’s mind off the red eyes, the sound of Ser Dick’s bones crunching in its maw, the blood dripping from the worm-like tentacles like mutilated lips<a href="#_ftn5" id="_ftnref5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a>. Next would be a breastplate adorned with rubies. False blood.</p>
<p>Sam went through the artifacts one by one. First, a scepter with a strange spiral at the tip made of wood from the black weirwoods with blue leaves that grow in Asshai.</p>
<p>“That’s to draw back evil, you see. Works with vampyr…and other things.” Next, a candle of black glass twisted into an auger shape. “And this…this is a glass candle. In this, you can see past the miles and through time. There should have been more…but…”</p>
<p>He wouldn’t say it. The Crow’s Eye. Next Sam opened a leathern case with brass latches.</p>
<p>“Now these are powerful potions…here’s one for healing. Here’s one for energy…this can give you a whole other day without sleep…and this…I think? Yes. This one harnesses the power of the elements! Very useful that.”</p>
<p>“What is that pile of rocks for then?” Ser Rolly Duckfield is a man of the East. It would take more than a little magic to daunt him. Griff, however:<em> This is a dream. Just a nightmare. It has to be. </em>You know nothing, young Griff. You didn’t bargain for this when you sailed across the Narrow Sea. You meant to fight Lannisters and Baratheons. Not monsters. Not sorcery. Septa Lemore loves you, but she could never prepare you for this.</p>
<p>“That, Ser Duck, is a golem. Or it will be when called upon. Or at least that’s what the spell book says…” Sam picked up a cloak of thick black cloth made of a wool not grown in this world, or not anymore. “This is an invisibility cloak. It, uh, well it makes the wearer invisible. And these…” He drew forth from a black velvet sacks three amulets on gold chains: one of fiery opal, one of red agate, and one of glowing yellow-green moonstone. “The Moon’s Heart gives the wearer the power to enter a man’s dreams. The Sun’s Heart lets the wearer move objects without touching them, and the Star’s Heart…that gives the wearer control over fire…going to want to hold onto that…” He handed the opal amulet to Griff, who stared at it glumly before handing it off to Connington.</p>
<p>Gently Sam handled a crystal bauble. “This vial can bring light into any darkness, no matter how thick…” Even more gingerly, he picked up a shiny silver ring. “Any man who attacks the one wearing this ring, receives twice what he doles out.” Sam took the prince’s hand and slid the ring on. At first, it was clearly too big, but it shrink to fit snugly around young Griff’s slender finger.</p>
<p>“And this…this is uh, a sort of hammery-axe kind of instrument…a stone head with an oaken, um…I actually don’t know what this is…”</p>
<p>I do. It is the Hammer of the Waters, and it is coming home. But the next item was what I desire most. “Here we have the Ice Geode…this weakens the powers of the Old Gods…”</p>
<p>“Wait… I thought you got your power from the Old Gods,” Griff said. “I thought the Old Gods were good.”</p>
<p>“They are, your grace, for one part. The Old Gods are a complicated lot though…some of what Euron is using is the power of the Old Gods. They have powers of both good and evil.”</p>
<p>“That doesn’t make sense.” Griff would discover that many things don’t make sense before the end.<br/>            “No, I don’t suppose so…And this…” Sam picked up the gnarled dead branch of an ancient oak, petrified with age. “This is a Woods Wizard’s wand.”</p>
<p>“And what does that do?” Griff asked impatiently.</p>
<p>“Everything!”</p>
<p>That night, Connington wouldn’t sleep, and young Griff would dream of the Star Spawn. He would never sail again. Jon Snow would. His sail begins soon, and the red priestess’s bed is warm. Sansa’s bed is very cold, and lions and krakens will one day soon march her way. For the time being, I whispered to Connington. <em>Not to marry the Dornish woman. Not to marry the Dornish woman. A Dornish princess will give him his Rhaenys and his Aegon but not his Visenya. He will go to the wolf girl for his Visenya and then disaster!</em></p>
<p>No need to add that his Visenya is sailing to Essos as we speak. The realm’s new Visenya rides south with a babe, pursued by enemies who will soon close in. No need to add that the wolf maid gave herself the Visenya and would have with or without the Dornish princess. <em>See your prince drenched in sweat in his bed, the fire eating him from without. Just like Harrenhall…remember Harrenhall? Remember the beginning of the end?</em></p>
<p>The mad maid discovered the bones the next morning, thanks to my whispering from within the raven cage. The skeleton is that of an old drunken knight, chained there by vow to guard the old clock so long that no one remembered it needed guarding. Malora brought the wine – an Arbor vintage of the very finest grapes conceived the same year as the promised prince. They passed it from hand to hand: young Griff first, then Malora, then Connington, Duck, Samwell, Loras, Estermont, and finally Blackbar, until the bottle was emptied. Duck was obviously smitten on Lady Malora, the poor fool. She was pretty, or might have been in a different year, a different state of mind. As it was, her hair was a wild mess of golden-brown like a haystack, and she was so thin her shoulder blades threatened to pierce the orange silk of her gown. As the last drop was drained, a red light glowed from the eye sockets in the skull, and it spoke – or rather, it laughed.</p>
<p>“It’s laughing…” Sam said with a hiccup. “Perhaps that’s all that’s needed?”</p>
<p>“It isn’t,” said the skeleton through a fit of hysterics.</p>
<p>“Oh, so you do speak,” Malora said.</p>
<p>“Come on then…ask me how to escape the Isle! Even the archmaester doesn’t know the secret way…but I do!”</p>
<p>“Are these bones drunk?” Duck asked.</p>
<p>“Fine. Tell us the way,” Malora demanded.</p>
<p>“Say please.”</p>
<p>“Fine. Please.”</p>
<p>“The bottle…give it to me.”</p>
<p>It was empty, however, as the spell dictated. For a moment, Griff stared at Sam, who stared at Malora. “What? You’re dead!” Griff said. “You can’t smell wine…can’t taste it…”</p>
<p>“But I remember…” the skull groaned desperately.</p>
<p>“Well,” Malora said. “If you should happen to remember a safe way out of here as well as you remember wine…”</p>
<p>“Done! Give me one drink now and I’ll tell you anything you want to know!”</p>
<p>“You may have all of it,” Malora said, and made to hand over the empty bottle before snatching it back. “<em>After</em> you tell us the way.” Griff and his knights gaped at the mad maid as if for the first time they saw how she had earned her name.</p>
<p>“Fine…the way is through the clock.”</p>
<p>The clock to which the skeleton was chained is among the oldest in the kingdoms. Its face is bigger than a wagon wheel, and the wood casing that hides its works is carved ornately into three dragons with polished scales and bared teeth. The crooked hands are still and have been so for centuries. Its glass is broken and cobwebs cling to the pendulum that is tarnished nearly black.</p>
<p>“Just go through the clock,” Sam said with a nervous chuckle. “What am I, a wizard?”</p>
<p>“To escape the Ravenry you have to walk through time. A clock isn’t time…it’s just numbers and springs. Pay it no mind, just walk right on through…about that wine, now…”<a href="#_ftn6" id="_ftnref6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a></p>
<p>Malora handed it off, and the skeleton lifted the empty bottle to its open jaws and upended it into the non-existent gullet – and just as the wine finished drinking itself, the prince and his men and his wizards walked through time and found Dragonstone mere hours away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Chapter 4: Daenerys</p>
<p>Dany stood on the balcony of the Volantene palace with Stannis, staring out at a southern sky that was slowly filling with clouds. They could just see Asha Greyjoy’s fleet approaching, the black sails adorned with red shapes – krakens perhaps, though it was too hazy to tell for sure. The princess of Pyke came in the nick of time. Dany’s scouts had reported enemy armies approaching by land from the east, and they would likely be fast on the heels of Princess Asha by way of the Summer Sea. Jon Snow’s army was on its way, though they might not arrive in time for the first battle. Typically, the Harpy Eggs and the Tourmalines sent out their slave armies first, and that was an easy enough fight to win. However, once their initial forces were routed, they would follow with their true strength, the nature of which only Asha fully understood. Soon Dany would know what she was up against, but until then, she could only watch the skies and appreciate the beauty of an approaching storm while she still could.</p>
<p>            “What does that cloud look like to you Lord Stannis?” Dany asked her Westerosi general, who had been standing silently next to her. To Dany the clouds seemed to take on the shapes of her fears, gathering in the sky as her enemies gathered around Dragon Bay.</p>
<p>            “Looks to be moving swiftly,” Stannis answered gruffly.</p>
<p>            “I didn’t ask you what it was doing…I asked you what it looks like. To me, it looks like a leviathan…see the mouth? And the tail?”</p>
<p>            The letter from Jon Snow had given Dany pause, for it contained sad news for the chieftain of the North, the Vale and the Freefolk. It seemed they would have similar losses to speak of. The letter that arrived had read:</p>
<p>
  <em>Dear Queen Daenerys,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It is my pleasure to inform you that I have mustered an army as large and larger than I boasted as King in the North. Three thousand strong assemble now to assist in ending the evil of slavery in our world: Freefolk, Northmen, and Knights of the Vale. They will take up arms for you in the knowledge of my assurance that you will keep to your promise and lend your children to our fight for life against death. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I bring my brother Rickon, a son of the North, as a badge of our shared oath. Understand the weight and gravity of this offer, your grace. Though we rode victorious from our fight at the Wall with traitors, that was but the beginning of my sorrows. My lady wife, Val of the Freefolk, defied me in rebelling against my sister Queen Sansa, and was seduced by a weapon of similar evil to the Hellhorn of which you wrote previous. I will speak of these events in more detail when I arrive in your city, but suffice it to say, I am a widower. I know you understand, then, what the loss of another brother would mean to me – who has lost brother and husband and knows that pain.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I ride upon the sealing of this letter to the port of the Weeping Waterway. Soon we will put faces and voices to these words we have exchanged.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Sincerely,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>J.</em>
</p>
<ol>
<li><em> Devan Seaworth is quite well and will see his father in person soon.</em></li>
</ol>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>Stannis had told Dany about the Wildling princess and the marriage to Jon Snow, which had been done in secret in the godswood of Winterfell. After reading the letter himself, he suggested that Jon Snow might be something other than a man, but didn’t seem to know what that meant, or why that might be. Queen Selyse went utterly pale when the Chieftain’s name was mentioned, and she seemed to think his coming was a dark omen. Stannis scoffed some at her trepidation, but then Stannis could display such a lack of imagination at times that it was exasperating.</p>
<p>            In true form, Stannis said, “It appears to be a storm cloud.”</p>
<p>            “The Others take you, Stannis Baratheon. Do you ever break from the worldly plain your mind is so stuck in? Don’t you have fears and desires like the rest of us?”</p>
<p>            “Of course your grace…though it’s sometimes best to obscure them before others – as you surely know.”</p>
<p>            “I’m not asking you about your fears. I’m not asking about your marriage bed, for the Lord’s sake. I’m asking you about a cloud, to see if you can see anything other than what everyone else has shown you. It’s exactly this cold and unfeeling attitude and unimaginative nature that allows men to enslave their fellow humanity without a thought, and I’ve had it. So if you might turn off the dutiful liege lord and turn on the soul, I would appreciate it!”</p>
<p>            “If you like, your grace.”</p>
<p>            “Fine. Good. Now tell me what that cloud looks like!”</p>
<p>            “Rain.”</p>
<p>            Stannis turned and went inside, leaving Dany on her own<a href="#_ftn7" id="_ftnref7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a>, as the skies broke open and a deluge of rain began to fall, soaking her.</p>
<p>            While she waited for her mourning gown to dry, Dany sat in her bedchamber in her silk tunic, sipping the hibiscus tea Rhia had brought her. The gown hung from a rafter where the warmth from the hearth would reach it, and Shyrli dabbed away at the headdress with a linen cloth. She told the young Dothraki dressmaker that Jon Snow, a captain of the North in Westeros, would be arriving soon, and a new black gown was in order.</p>
<p>            “You do not wish to wear this gown? Does my khaleesi not like it?” Shyrli asked.</p>
<p>            It wasn’t that. Both the new mourning gown and the accompanying headdress were some of Shyrli’s best work. The base of the gown was black silk in the Qartheen fashion, with one breast and shoulder bared, over which Shyrli had woven glimmering onyx, obsidian and hematite beading together in patterns like curls of flame. These ran over her bared arm and covered the exposed breast, then ended at her middle where it cinched the waist of the gown tight. The headdress, shaped like tentacles in honor of her lost husband, was massive but made mostly of very thin silk and wire so that it wasn’t so heavy. The only major weight came from the abalone and the pearls that bedecked it and the tassels that dangled at each ear.</p>
<p>            “I love them. They’re beautiful…it’s just…” Dany stood and ran her fingers over the edges of the headdress. “My chieftain…he and his people are poor. Hungry. Seeing such raiment…the jewels and the detailing. I fear it will hurt them.”<a href="#_ftn8" id="_ftnref8" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a></p>
<p>            Shyrli nodded, understanding. “I can do simple.”</p>
<p>            “Good. And a gift of condolence for the chieftain himself. Something like this?”</p>
<p>            She took Jon Snow’s letter from the table and showed her stylist the seal with the Stark wolf. Shyrli tapped it with a finger.</p>
<p>            “I can do that. I shall draw something up tonight!”</p>
<p>            “Well there’s no hurry, sweetling…he’ll be weeks.”</p>
<p>            “I want it to be my best work.”</p>
<p>            “And why is that?”</p>
<p>            Shyrli shrugged. “Lady Maebi made me excited for the Snow prince coming…she said he brings good luck with him. She said the Great Stallion told her.”</p>
<p>            It was the first Dany had heard of this. “Well…I hope she is right. I truly do.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Chapter 5: Bran</p>
<p>Practicing as Rhaegar, Bran grows better and better at the sword and lance. Ser Willem is as hard on him as Aerys bid him be, and he is covered with bruises at the end of each day.</p>
<p>            <em>Did I tell you what the Ghiscari believe created the world?</em></p>
<p>
  <em>            Concentrate young man, or you will rue it.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>            There were three harpies in the void of the world: the swift wing, the storm wing, and the dark wing. They each laid an egg...</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>            Yes. Yes…and the storm wing devoured the swift and the dark and laid a great egg and that was the world. You’ve told me this one at least three times now, my prince.</em>
</p>
<p>            The prince counts his bruises before settling into bed with a book, <em>Human Bondage in Eastern Culture, </em>which he will read from cover to cover before sleeping. He has twelve bruises on his right side and only seven on the left, which greatly disturbs him. The prince does not like gaps. Asymmetry fills him with a stomach-churning nervousness. When he hears his father snapping at his mother, accusing her, he feels powerless. Pinching himself to make the bruises even on both sides helps, but only for a time. The king says Rheagar is the prince who was promised, but in all he has read, thousands and thousands of pages – every book in the great library practically – he doesn’t see anything that supports that theory. He repeats the stories and theories and prophecies in his head, but there is always a gap. Something is missing, and as the years go by, all that seems certain are two things:</p>
<ul>
<li>He must die in battle.</li>
<li>If he does not die, the world will.</li>
</ul>
<p>Princehood in the past looks like one bruise too many.</p>
<p>            Rhaegar stands naked at the window of the walking cottage, the hovel with hen’s feet that now stands upon the Isle of Faces, looking out over the weirwoods. The deep circles under his eyes deaden their deep indigo color, and tears blur them. Lyanna approaches, wearing his shirt and nothing else. Her eyes are bright like polished steel.</p>
<p>            <em>I tell you, your happiness is important to me. Whatever I have to do…if you are too much exposed, if you feel pain in any way, then we’re going to stop it and we’ll do something other…</em></p>
<p>
  <em>            Lyanna…</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>            You’ve brought…warmth into my life again. I can’t bear to see you unhappy like this. I want to set you up to rule this realm. To be king. I’ll put up the protection you and your allies need. Anything you can do for the North in return…</em>
</p>
<p>            Rhaegar closes his eyes and seems to sway.</p>
<p>            <em>But that’s not what this about,</em> Lyanna says. <em>It will be </em>your<em> realm. I want you to feel when I walk into your throne room that you can tell me to wait. I want you to be able to turn me away at your will and not fear me. I want you to be happy…to show me that smile that shines so bright… </em>She reaches up to touch the prince’s cheek.</p>
<p>            <em>Kill me, too, my lady. Or let me go.</em></p>
<p>            <em>I’m trying to tell you that I want you to feel free.</em></p>
<p><em>Then you must find a way to mean it…Lyanna…</em> He turns to her and rests his forehead upon hers. <em>Kill me…or I am afraid I will kill you</em>!<a href="#_ftn9" id="_ftnref9" name="_ftnref9">[9]</a></p>
<p>            Lyanna wants a spell to ease his pain, but there isn’t any such spell.</p>
<p><em>What is that book?</em> Eddard Stark asks in a hushed voice. He is young at Moat Cailin. He has snuck into a dilapidated tower that makes his skin crawl. It is creeping with rats and centipedes. Green moss and white ghostskin covers everything. He has followed his sister, who is doing something. Involved in something. Up to something. Something he can’t say aloud. The consequences of uttering it are worse than one can imagine.</p>
<p>
  <em>What book? Were you snooping in my things? What did you hope to find? A pair of bloody smallclothes? Moon tea? You and father can’t wait to judge me!</em>
</p>
<p>Ned doesn’t understand why she’s so angry, just as Bran isn’t sure why he is seeing all of this. What does it have to do with why he is stuck here, and how he is going to get his body back?</p>
<p>
  <em>I’m not trying to judge you…I’m trying to help you! For the Gods’ sake, Lyanna!</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The Gods…</em>
</p>
<p>Blue threads of lightning curl around Lyanna’s head, and her dark hair flies out in all directions. The blue light blinds Ned for a terrible second, and in the brief moment of dark he sees what she wants to show him: himself seated upon the Iron Throne, wearing black armor emblazoned with the direwolf of Stark in silver. Blood at his feet. There’s a patch over one eye, but it is him. Or is it? Ned blinks and the vision is gone. He turns and runs away from his sister as fast as he can.</p>
<p>Dread of someone you love in the past smells like green moss and ghostskin. Dread of yourself smells like hair burned by lightning.</p>
<p>Suddenly Bran finds himself in the year of Aegon’s conquest. Torrhen Stark’s wife Lyartha, a lady of the Flints, watches him kneeling in the godswood, as he knelt before the Dragon Lord. He is weeping, and pulling out his hair in hanks, tossing handfuls of dirt into his mouth. <em>Tell me I have not doomed my people,</em> he moans. Lyartha steals out to the lichyard, where she has seen the white wolf six days in a row. She comes face to face with him and stares deep into his red eyes.</p>
<p>
  <em>Speak to me, then, Lord of Wolves.</em>
</p>
<p>At first, the wolf just stares back in silence. He is familiar to Bran, but he cannot be Ghost. This was centuries before Jon discovered Ghost some ways from his littermates. It couldn’t be him. <em>Could it?</em> Just as Lyartha Stark is about to turn away, he speaks.</p>
<p>
  <em>What do you want?</em>
</p>
<p>For a moment, Lyartha seems to be considering her words carefully.</p>
<p>
  <em>Gold? Great beauty?</em>
</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>
  <em>A healthy son?</em>
</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>
  <em>Your family’s power returned?</em>
</p>
<p>Lyartha nods.</p>
<p>
  <em>Remove your gown and shift.</em>
</p>
<p>Lyartha obeys.</p>
<p>
  <em>Walk to the nightshade glen in the Wolfswood.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I don’t know where that is.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I will guide your steps.</em>
</p>
<p>Naked, with only her long brown hair to cover her breasts, she follows the white wolf deep, deep into the Wolfswood. The full moon lights her way to the glen – a dip in the forest filled with ferns and trillium, thick clusters of nightshade and wolfsbane, the carcasses of old sentinels covered in moss and toadstools. In a clearing, they stand in a circle – human women, female children of the forest, and some who look like a mix of both. Their chants in the Old Tongue grow louder as Lyartha draws near. Then suddenly, their feet lift off the forest floor, and they are twirling and spinning high in the air. Soon, Lyartha’s feet leave the earth as well, and she is rising higher, higher, higher…as high as the tallest sentinel pine in the forest, her silhouette long and lovely against the moon, and she is laughing. They are all laughing, these witches of the wood.<a href="#_ftn10" id="_ftnref10" name="_ftnref10">[10]</a></p>
<p>Freedom in the long, long past smells like fern and trillium. Freedom sounds like naked laughter and looks like a white wolf with red eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Coppola, Francis Ford, <em>Bram Stoker’s Dracula</em>, American Zoetrope, 1992.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref2" id="_ftn2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Weiner, Matthew, <em>Mad Men</em>, Season 1, Episode 9: “Shoot,” 2007.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref3" id="_ftn3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> Martin, George, R. R., <em>A Storm of Swords</em>, Chapter 56, Bran IV.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref4" id="_ftn4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Schumacher, Joel, <em>The Lost Boys</em>, Warner Bros, 1987.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref5" id="_ftn5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> Ween, “Mutilated Lips,” <em>The Mollusk, </em>Elektra, 1997.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref6" id="_ftn6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Beagle, Peter S., <em>The Last Unicorn</em>, Rankin/Bass Productions, 1982.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref7" id="_ftn7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> Breathed, Berke. <em>Bloom County: Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things</em>, Boston: Little Brown, 1985.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref8" id="_ftn8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> Huston, John, <em>Annie</em>, Columbia, 1982.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref9" id="_ftn9" name="_ftn9">[9]</a> Milch, David, <em>Deadwood</em>, Season 1, Episode 8: “Suffer the Little Children,” HBO, 2004.</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref10" id="_ftn10" name="_ftn10">[10]</a> Eggers, Robert, <em>The VVitch</em>, Parts and Labor, 2015.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>